


and the next one began

by ofthelabyrinth



Series: doraelin rewrites [1]
Category: Throne of Glass Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: F/M, rewrite of That qos scene: doraelin edition
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-12
Updated: 2020-08-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:21:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25868875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ofthelabyrinth/pseuds/ofthelabyrinth
Summary: One sentence just for Aelin Galathynius; one sentence that changed everything:WITCH KILLER—THE HUMAN IS STILL INSIDE HIM
Relationships: Aelin Ashryver Galathynius | Celaena Sardothien & Dorian Havilliard, Aelin Ashryver Galathynius | Celaena Sardothien/Dorian Havilliard
Series: doraelin rewrites [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1926646
Comments: 4
Kudos: 19





	and the next one began

_ One sentence just for Aelin Galathynius; one sentence that changed everything:  _

**_WITCH KILLER—_ **

**_THE HUMAN IS STILL INSIDE HIM_ **

The demon was going to kill her.

And he  _ wanted _ it to. 

Somewhere, deep in his fractured mind, he knew that would be better, knew that it would be a mercy. That the other options were endless torment akin to the one he had been experiencing for as long as his consciousness allows him to remember.

There was something about her face, the face that looked terrified, that made the tiny, uncorrupted portion of his mind––the part that reminded him of himself and kept him sane—recoiled.

He neared the woman, step by step across the narrow, shaded bridge, the turrets high above them gleaming with blinding light. Wishing with every moment, he could stop, turn away. Choose the option that was never a real possibility and take back control with one last heroic move and throw himself off the bridge.

Blood covered her arms, and she panted as she backed away from him, her hands out before her, a gold ring shining on her finger. He could smell her now—the immortal, mighty blood in her veins.

“Dorian,” she said.

He did not know that name, nor did he want to. Not anymore. Not after this.

Not after he was going to kill her. 

Time. She needed to buy more time, or steal it, while the bridge still lay in shadow, while the sun slowly moved.

“Dorian,” Aelin pleaded again, hoping for a single shred of humanity, a sign of the Dorian she knew.  _ Her _ Dorian.

“I’m going to rip you apart from the inside out,” the demon said.

Ice spread across the bridge, a twisted bastardization of what was supposed to be her fire’s kin. Her injuries shifted and ripped into her with each step as she retreated toward the tower door.

Still, the final object separating her from her friend––no, they were more than that, her other half––had not come down.

But the king, the evil separating her from the one that made her whole, had not yet arrived.

“Your father is currently in his council room,” she said, fighting the pain splintering through her. “He is in there with  _ Chaol _ —with your  _ friend _ —and your father has likely already killed him.”

“Good.”

“Chaol,” Aelin said, her voice breaking. Her foot slid against a patch of ice, and the world tilted as she steadied her balance. The drop to the ground hundreds of feet below hit her in the gut, but she kept her eyes on the prince even as agony rippled down her body again. “Chaol. You sacrificed yourself. You let them put that collar on you—so he could get out.”

“I’m going to let them put a collar on you, and then we can play.” 

She hit the tower door, fumbling for the latch.

But it was iced over.

She clawed at the ice, glancing between the prince and the sun that had begun to peek around the corner of the tower.

Dorian was a mere ten steps away.

She whirled back around, she was desperate. She had to push deep, find something that would  _ hurt. _ But once she did, she was unsure who it would hurt more. “Sorscha—her name was Sorscha, and she loved you.  _ You _ loved  _ her _ .” Her voice cracked, and she almost hoped he wasn’t self-aware enough to hear it. “And they took her away from you.”

Five steps.

There was nothing human in that face, no flicker of memory in those sapphire eyes. No hint that Dorian remembered who she was to him. That he remembered he loved her once, and likely does still.

Aelin began weeping, even as blood leaked down her nose from his nearness. She cried for the beautiful, kind prince who was there for her before anyone else. For the man knew her soul and was not afraid. “I came back for you. Just like I promised.” Nine words, nine words that meant everything she thought but didn’t say. Everything that she wanted to do but couldn’t.

A dagger of ice appeared in his hand, its lethal tip glinting like a star in the sunlight. “I don’t care,” Dorian said. And her heart shattered.

She shoved a hand between them as if she could push him away, grabbing one of his own hands tight. His skin was so cold, so empty as he used the other to plunge the knife into her side.

Aelin crawled away from the door that was stained with her blood. Away from the Valg prince who laughed as she clutched at her side and inched across the bridge, her blood smearing behind her.

The sun was still creeping around that tower.

“Dorian,” she said, her legs pushing against the bridge’s glass, her blood dribbling out from between her freezing fingers, warming them. “Remember.”

The Valg prince stalked her, smiling faintly as she collapsed onto her front in the center of the bridge. The shadowed spires of the glass castle loomed around her—a tomb. Her tomb.

“Dorian, remember,” she gasped out. He’d missed her heart—barely. (She couldn’t help but wonder why an ancient creature would have such shoddy aim. It gave her hope.)

“He said to retrieve you, but perhaps I’ll have my fun first.”

Two knives appeared in his hands, curved and vicious.

The sun began glinting just above the tower overhead.

“Remember Chaol,” she begged. “Remember Sorscha. Remember  _ me _ .”

A boom shook the castle from somewhere on the other side of the building. And then a great wind, a soft wind, a lovely wind, as if the heart-song of the world were carried on it. And Aelin supposed it was.

She closed her eyes for a moment and pressed her hand against her side, drawing in a breath.

“We get to come back,” Aelin said, pushing her hand harder and harder into her wound until the blood stopped until it was only her tears that flowed. “Dorian, we get to come back from this loss—from this darkness. We get to come back, and I came back for you.”

She was weeping now, weeping as that wind faded away, and her wound knitted closed.

The prince’s daggers had gone slack in his hands.

And on his finger, Athril’s golden ring glowed.

“Fight it,” she panted. The sun angled closer. “Fight it.  _ We _ get to come  _ back _ . You and I.” She spoke with renewed confidence, realizing the truth of the double meanings of her words. A glowing revelation that had nothing to do with fire or rings. Until it did.

Brighter and brighter, the golden ring pulsed at his finger.

The prince staggered back a step, his face twisting. “You human worm.”

He had been too busy stabbing her to notice the ring she’d slipped onto his finger when she’d grabbed his hand as if to shove him away.

“Take it off,” he growled, trying to touch it—and hissing as though it burned. “Take it off!”

Ice grew, spreading toward her, fast as the rays of sunlight that now shot between the towers, refracting across every glass parapet and bridge. It filled the castle with Mala Fire-Bringer’s glorious light. 

The bridge—this bridge that she and Chaol had selected for this purpose, for this one moment at the apex of the solstice—was smack in the middle of it.

The light hit her, and it filled her heart with the force of an exploding star.

With a roar, the Valg prince sent a wave of ice for her, spears, and lances aimed at her chest.

So Aelin flung her hands out toward the prince, toward her friend, her twin soul, and hurled her magic at him with everything she had. Knowing deep in her soul that it would land true.

There was fire, and light, and darkness, and ice.

But the woman—the woman was there, halfway across the bridge, her hands out before her as she got to her feet.

No blood leaked from where the ice had stabbed her. Only clean, polished skin peeked through the black material of her suit.

Healed—with magic.

All around him, there was so much fire and light, tugging at him.

We get to come back, she said. As if she knew what this darkness was, what horrors existed. Fight it.

A light was burning at his finger—a light that cracked inside him.

A light that cracked a sliver into the darkness.

Remember, she said.

Her flames tore at him, and the demon was screaming. But it did not hurt him. Her flames recognized him and only kept the beast at bay.

Remember.

A sliver of light in the blackness that looked a lot like a silhouette.

A broken doorway.

_ Remember. _

Over the demon’s screaming, he pushed—pushed, and looked out through its eyes. His eyes.

And saw her standing before him.

Dorian.

His name was Dorian.

Dorian Havilliard. And he was the Crown Prince of Adarlan.

And Celaena Sardothien—Aelin Galathynius had come back for him. And he loved her for it and for everything else.

She faced him, an ancient sword in her hands.

“Dorian?” she breathed.

The demon inside him was screaming and pleading, ripping at him, trying to bargain.

A wave of black slammed into the shield of ice he’d thrown up between the princess and his father. Soon—soon the king would break through it.

Dorian lifted his hands to the Wyrdstone collar—cold, smooth, thrumming.

“Don’t,” the demon shrieked. “Don’t!”

There were tears––tears of relief, Dorian assumed. But a small corner of his mind, one that was focused on the future, wondered if they were something more––running down Aelin’s face, as Dorian gripped the black stone encircling his throat. And, bellowing his grief, his rage, his pain, he snapped the collar from his neck. The Wyrdstone collar broke in two—severing along a hairline fracture where the ring’s power had sliced through.

Dorian was panting, and blood was running from his nose, but—

“Aelin,” he gasped out, and the voice was his. It was him. It was strangely poetic, how his first word was her name when just moments before he was fighting his body for her.

She ran, sheathing the Sword of Orynth, reaching his side, naturally meshing with him as if this was where she was supposed to be all along. The wall of ice exploded beneath a hammer of darkness.

The king’s power surged for them, and Aelin flung out a single hand. A shield of fire blasted into existence, and the darkness was shoved back.

“Neither of you are leaving here alive,” the king said, his rough voice slithering through the fire.

Dorian sagged against her, and Aelin slipped a hand around his waist to hold him up.

Pain flickered in her gut, and a throbbing began in her blood. She couldn’t hold out, not so unprepared, even as the sun held its peak, as if Mala herself willed it to linger just a little longer to amplify the gifts she’d already showered on a Princess of Terrasen.

“Dorian,” Aelin said, pain lancing down her spine as burnout neared.

He turned his head, an eye still on the wall of flickering flames: such pain, and grief, and rage in those eyes. Yet, somehow, beneath it all—a spark of spirit. Of hope.

Aelin extended her hand—a question and an offer and a promise.

“To a better future,” she said.

“You came back,” he said as if that were an answer. And it was. An answer and a promise and a question Aelin understood and answered with action.

They joined hands.

So the world ended.

And the next one––a world in which a prince and a princess from opposing countries were united in more ways than one––began.

**Author's Note:**

> if i cried while writing this no i didn't <3
> 
> also, please excuse the copious amounts of "––" i was trying to replicate sjm's writing style


End file.
